Friday, April 06, 2012

Monsanto Threatens Lawsuit Against Vermont

The Vermont legislature is considering a law requiring all genetically modified food to be clearly labeled so consumers will know what they’re buying. The bill, H. 722, is called the Vermont Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.

Monsanto is threatening to sue the state of Vermont if this law gets passed.

As far fetched as this sounds, Monsanto filed a similar lawsuit against Vermont in the 1990s — and won. Vermont had passed a law requiring milk producers to label their products which contain bovine growth hormones. After Monsanto successfully sued the state, Vermont had to modify the law to make it strictly voluntary.

Monsanto even tried to crack down on Ben and Jerry’s, because it said on the label that their ice cream was free of hormones. Monsanto thought Ben and Jerry’s was implying that there might be something hazardous in consuming recombinant bovine growth hormone. Preposterous!

Monsanto tried — unsuccessfully — to persuade several states to prevent Ben and Jerry’s from using these “hormone-free” labels.

California has a state initiative on the ballot that’s similar to Vermont’s proposed law. If this initiative passes, will Monsanto sue California too? Since California is the world’s eighth largest economy, they’d be a much tougher opponent than Vermont.

And if this initiative passes in California, other states might start passing similar laws. We can hope.

Monsanto is easily one of THE MOST evil corporations in the world. They lead the world in genetically altered seeds/crops for starters. Don't get me started on these guys I might have to do my own post on them.;-)

Every year Monsanto sells their genetic signature seed to the farmers. Every year they change the signature so that if a farmer must buy the new seed every year. If a farmer grows last years seed, Monsanto can and will (with the full support of the law) take him to court.

This is how Monsanto gets the patent of common grains that Mother Nature invented millions of years ago.

I’m sure Monsanto figures that if any of it’s cases ever reach the Supreme Court, sitting there is a former staff attorney named Clarence Thomas who will look on them kindly

SW: You're right, publicity is exactly what Monsanto doesn't want, and that's why we need to bombard them with it.

Randal: It ate the curtain.

Dusty: I think Monsanto might actually be THE most evil company in the world. I hope you will do a post on them; the more the merrier.

Erik: It's even worse than that. If a few GM seeds from one farm get taken by the wind over to a neighboring farm which isn't using GM seeds, Monsanto will sue the other farmer for stealing their seeds, or patent infringement, or something. Sort of like getting robbed and then getting arrested for vagrancy.

TO HELL WITH MONSANTO! Those sneaky, greedy bastards are only out for their own profit, and will ruthlessly do anything to get that profit. The people of Vermont have every right to know the information in question, so Monsanto AND the courts be damned!